Maleness and femaleness

[avevale_intelligencer]

It's never wise to generalise about large groups, and "men" and "women" are among the largest groups in existence, whether you count the physical gender of the body at birth or the gender identified with by the individual. But everybody does it. People talk about "women's rights" as though all women wanted exactly the same rights, people talk about what "men" have done as if there was some sort of immortal male hive mind to which all males were in thrall (there isn't, is there?), whereas the spectrum of diversity contained in those two small, simple words "men" and "women" makes almost any meaningful pronouncement impractical.

But there is a cultural gestalt of "maleness" which, unlike the idealised notion of "femininity" against which the women's movement has been rebelling for years, seems to me to be more or less accurate in some if not most respects. Some of its chief characteristics:

Men believe only the opinions of men are important.

Men are either incapable of, or actively avoid, empathy.

Men exercise control over their territory through untidiness.

Men have no patience, and will resort to force at the slightest provocation.

Men do not consider consequences.

Men enjoy losing self-control and see no reason not to.

Men think women need them.

And so on. Obviously not all men fit this stereotype completely, though many in my experience have come remarkably close...but the problem I see, the difference between the male and female stereotypes, is that in general, this misleading image is not being rebelled against like its counterpart, but embraced and promoted. We (as a gender) seem to want to be like that, even to be proud of it. Magazines like Nuts and Zoo and Loaded, celebrating unreconstructed maleness at its worst, actually do well, and I see none specifically advocating an alternative image.

I remember a series of commercials for the first one of those, in which women were depicted trying to deal with domestic emergencies (and failing of course because Women Are Useless) while a sneering voice-over said "Women! Don't expect any help on a Tuesday!" Without a break, the same voice then went on "Nuts about women? Sport? Motors?" and extolled the supposed virtues of the rag in question. The jarring disjunct between the two uses of the word "women"--on the one hand, the real person in need of help but obviously not considered important enough to be given it, and on the other, the airbrushed, objectified nudes or semi-nudes with which male readers were invited to people their fetid imaginations--appalled me, as did the advertisers' seeming unawareness thereof. (In retrospect, they were probably perfectly well aware of it. Sometimes getting people talking about an advert is enough, even if they're outraged by it.)

As long as this state of affairs continues--as long as the brainless, infantile, violent caveman/lager-lout image is promoted as an ideal of maleness instead of being derided as an outmoded cliché--then while I will honour individual men who transcend the limitations of their gender and become something more (and I am privileged to know several), I can see very little hope for maleness in general.

Comments

[deborah_c]

There is a (very) long but interesting discussion going on at the moment about rape, and (different) men's attitudes, particularly not just to avoiding doing it, but actively avoiding it happening. A lot of what has been said touches on what you write here: one of the main threads is about men who are the Good Guys in this needing to talk to other men (who aren't, necessarily) about their attitudes, because many of the latter aren't going to take notice when a woman says the same thing.

Obviously, other aspects on your list directly touch on that issue as well; cereta's conclusion is quite similar to yours, but just maybe with a touch more hope. At least, I've found many of the comments to give me some. I've found one of the discussions I've had with a boy I otherwise respect rather depressing, though, in that he doesn't believe that it's nearly the problem that cereta and her commenters suggest, even after my explaining that I've been sexually assaulted multiple times, and that my experience is not the least bit unusual (except, perhaps, that so far, it's not gone as far as rape). I wonder what would happen if a man confronted him with it...

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd be willing to try, but it would probably have to be a man known to him whose opinion he couldn't easily discount.

[sodzilla.livejournal.com]

Same thing happened to me. My boyfriend said, when we discussed cereta's post, that he doesn't think the practice of guilting women about being raped is still common. This based on "the impression" he gets, without AFAIK having been close to more than one rape victim in his life, and that one being of the "two men get young girl drugged and take turns" variety where blaming the victim is at least less common.

It's not just the women who actually ARE raped, though, even if they're obviously the worst sufferers. Almost every woman circumscribes her life, or is urged by others to do so, based on the need to avoid dangerous situations; very few men do, they don't understand it, and until and unless a large majority of men DO understand we women will have to go on the way we are.

[scendan.livejournal.com]

As someone who works at a Rape Crisis center, teaches women's self-defense and other classes on topics related to rape, I can say that in my experience, women blaming themselves for rape, women blaming other women for rape, and men blaming women for rape is still widespread. Perhaps not as overt as it once was when women who were raped would be openly accused of aiding and abetting the rapist, sometimes in court, but it most definitely is still prevelant.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I've got a couple of those problems, mostly the untidiness part. But I often think through consequences too much, so much that I delay action. And, bluntly, without the women in my life, their opinions and expertise and maturity when I'm an idiot, I'd be lost.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Me too, on all counts.

I don't think women are ideal beings either, but as a general rule they are reliably a cut or several above us, and that needs to be conveyed to all men in a way that will inspire them to be better.

[scendan.livejournal.com]

My firm opinion is people are people, and while there are social gender trends that have some validity, to judge any person, regardless of their gender, based on a stereotype is to do a disservice.

I assume all men and women are mature, intelligent, responsible and empathetic people until or unless they prove me wrong.

At least, that's my ideal. I fall short sometimes, but that is what I try for. I am proven right a decent amount of the time for both genders and all inbetween. :)

[batyatoon]

This.

Men are not inferior to women any more than vice versa.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe what seems to me to be a qualitative difference is my perception of a personal preference. And maybe that perception is also conditioned by the fact that women haven't been doing horrible things to men and telling them it was their fault for the last several millennia. Any gender whose members can regard that state of affairs as not only normal but desirable has something missing in my view.

But, you're right...one judges individuals as individuals. It's the only way.

[batyatoon]

... well, strictly speaking, there's no human being who's been doing anything for the last several millennia, for the simple reason that we don't live that long.

I say again that you do your gender a disservice. You personally don't regard that state as normal or desirable, and you have as much right to represent The Male as anyone.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

... well, strictly speaking, there's no human being who's been doing anything for the last several millennia, for the simple reason that we don't live that long.

And you know what I mean. :)

Looking back at the post, though, I still think my comments are fair, since they are primarily addressing a culture. The fact is that, while the women's movement is trying to build a cultural image for women that is truer and fairer than the one handed down by the patriarchy, there is no such concerted effort on my side of the fence; there seems, if anything, rather to be a concerted retreat into the old, hopelessly outmoded cultural image of the caveman, the "action hero," the lout. I wish it wasn't so, but I fear it is. I am male, but in many, many ways I don't represent what men think of when they think "male." I don't represent what *I* think of when I think "male," and in most ways that is the result of a deliberate choice. If I see a substantive change for the better, be sure I shall rejoice about it.

Anyway, if I were going to do any gender a disservice, what better than my own?

[eleri.livejournal.com]

there's also the idea of masculine/feminine as archtypical energies, and neither of them really have to do with what bits your body has or not, it's just two polarities.

"Masculine" tends to be direct, active focused, linear and intellectual

"Feminine" tends to be abstract, more passive, emotional.

Everyone has both. Some people tend to be in their masculine more, some people in their feminine, and people *move between them* regularly. The more you can freely and consiously move between the two, the better you can adapt to situations. You don't want them *in balance*, because balance=absolute equality=stagnation. Sometimes you NEED to be in one or the other to progress.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. Exactly, this.

One of the things that really appealed to me about neopaganism was the concept of "dynamic polarity"; the pendulum of a clock, not caught up at one end or the other, or even in the middle, but constantly in motion. I've seen some hopes expressed for a future when all genders are the same (dressing the same, looking the same, sounding the same), and I don't like that idea at all. Equal, yes, please gods. Never the same.

Masculinity has the potential to be a good thing, I don't deny that. But it's still mostly potential, and the achievement is long overdue.

[scendan.livejournal.com]

This is fascinating. I teach Date Rape avoidance and Dating Violence Awareness presentations to high school classes in my local area through the Domestic Violence shelter/Rape Crisis center I work for. The perceptions of teens, boys and girls alike, about gender roles are really quite amazing--both because sometimes the kids fall for the cliches even more horrifically than you'd think, and other times because they are so wise to them and so cynical of them.